Nonthermal Site Occupation at the Donor-Acceptor Interface of Organic Solar Cells

Brigeman, A. N.; Fusella, M. A.; Rand, B. P.; Giebink, N. C.

doi:10.1103/PhysRevApplied.10.034034

Title: Nonthermal Site Occupation at the Donor-Acceptor Interface of Organic Solar Cells

Journal Article · Tue Sep 18 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · Physical Review Applied

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.10.034034· OSTI ID:1595576

Brigeman, A. N. ^[1]; Fusella, M. A. ^[2]; Rand, B. P. ^[2]; Giebink, N. C. ^[1]

Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)
Princeton Univ., NJ (United States)

Here, we investigate the nature of occupation and relaxation within the charge transfer density of states (CT DOS) for bulk heterojunction organic solar cells consisting of the donor boron subphthalocyanine chloride and the acceptor C₆₀. We observe relaxation of geminate CT states on a sub-ns timescale via an approximately 70-meV dynamic redshift in their photoluminescence, whereas free carrier relaxation at longer times leads to the formation of nongeminate CT states at even lower energy. In steady state, we find that thermalization within the DOS is incomplete, resulting in a Boltzmann-like CT state distribution characterized by an effective temperature above that of the ambient. These findings confirm that electron and hole populations can be far from equilibrium in organic solar cells and may prompt a reassessment of analyses that assume the same temperature for their charge-carrier distributions in the dark and under illumination.

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Research Organization:: Princeton Univ., NJ (United States); Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0012458; SC0012365

OSTI ID:: 1595576

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1546137

Journal Information:: Physical Review Applied, Vol. 10, Issue 3; ISSN 2331-7019

Publisher:: American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 16 works

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